


hit me with everything you have (and don’t hold back)

by Sorbus



Category: Katekyou Hitman Reborn!
Genre: Angst, Bullying, Depression, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Gen, M/M, Platonic Soulmates, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Suicide Attempt, Suicide mention, Unreliable Narrator, but not rn, do not read if sad things make u sad, idk - Freeform, rn is shit and sad, tbh everything Tsuna sees will be in a negative light, tentatively getting better
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-04-26
Updated: 2018-06-15
Packaged: 2018-10-24 03:33:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,305
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10733277
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sorbus/pseuds/Sorbus
Summary: The Words people had sprawled somewhere on their body weren’t always perfect. But even then, it wasn’t common to have words that were just so bad."Damn, you really are no good."- - - - -for my babs at the khr slack. ty for the prompt





	1. Chapter 1

The Words people had sprawled somewhere on their body weren’t always perfect. Some were pretty plain, greetings, apologies, and the like. Some were seemingly nonsensical, others were obviously replies to a particular question. Some, even, were pretty Not Nice. The idea that one day a person would open their mouth to say the most romantic of words, words that linked both your souls, was a particular type of delusion best left to third rate romance books and cliché rom-coms.

But even then, it wasn’t common to have words that were just so _bad_.

_Damn, you really are no good._

It takes Tsuna a while before he manages to read the words. Both because he was slow to start reading – which, after he saw his Words, was just an extra punch to the gut because they were _right_ – and because they were on his back. Nana had refused to read them – never really talked about words, and considering how _in love_ she was with her soulmate, was probably on purpose. Instead, Tsuna had to stand on a stool and twist around to see them in the mirror. It was hard going, and difficult to see, and it only became harder when tears welled up in his eyes and he slipped and fell. Nana had found him like that – wailing his eyes out and with a slow bleeding scrape on his forehead – and took one look to take it all in before scooping him up in a smothering hug.

But the damage had been done. The words had burned into his psyche – a physical brand of his uselessness, weighing down on his back like the world unto Atlas and twice as heavy.

The words could not be unseen.

– x –

Like some sort of premonition, Tsuna was on the scale of ‘average at best’ to ‘absolutely horrific’ at everything he did. School, sports, hobbies. His grades were abysmal, he was more likely to score against his own team than any other, and Tsuna could barely make an omelette that was at least semi-edible. Maybe it was a curse, or self-fulfilling prophecy. Either way, Tsuna simply was no good. He had probably been born no good, and would go on to grow up no good, and he’d most likely die no good as well.

Undoubtedly, the worst part was when the other children caught on.

It had been a shocking, painful jolt of recognition when Tsuna first heard his nickname. Useless-Tsuna. _No-Good_ -Tsuna. He’d frantically checked to see if his back was still covered, and it had been. Then it was like a punch to the stomach to admit that maybe it was just so obvious, so tell-tale clear that Tsuna simply was subpar that it didn’t matter if people could see the words marking him as such. They’d figure it out anyway.

When he went home that night, it was the second time in his life he’d cried so hard.

– x –

It probably should have occurred to Tsuna that he would have already had to be known as ‘no good’ for his words to make sense, but really it didn’t. He shouldn’t be that surprised he didn’t manage to figure it out anyway. There were few things he ever did.

But he hadn’t really considered things that far, and so he was never really braced for each stab of hurt every casual bit of disregard or callous dismissal happened to give him. It wasn’t so much a wound that tore open again and again than a slow but steady whittling down of his defences. Each subsequent insult hit a little deeper with the weight of all its predecessors at its back. Every snicker, snide comment, shove and sidelong glance became both increasingly familiar and increasingly unbearable. It had gotten to the point that Tsuna barely outwardly reacted.

And still, even without that entertainment, people persisted in putting Tsuna down.

– x –

When Tsuna stopped eating, he earned only a few glances at his skinny wrists.

 

When Tsuna stopped sleeping, people reacted inasmuch as to make fun of the bags under his eyes, too.

 

When Tsuna stopped caring, nobody really noticed.

– x –

Tsuna’s thoughts had never happened at lightning speed like other peoples seemed to, and they never really would. Expect, for one moment in his life.

That being the moment a car was coming straight at him.

Thousands of thoughts seemed to burst to life in his head, fight, flight, _freeze_. In all honesty, there were too many emotions, too many reactions to process at once. But Tsuna would forever remember thinking this:

There was a car coming towards him.

He could get out of the way, if he moved quickly.

_He didn’t want to move._

This. This is what he’d been waiting for. This is the sort of situation he’d prayed for in those low moments when the medicine cabinet in the bathroom seemed so enticing. When his fear and _what ifs_ or _but how Nana would take it_ overwhelmed him and he knew he’d never be able to really cut himself open like that. But oh, _oh,_ just what if he didn’t have to. What if something happened – outside of his control. What if one day, he fell down the stairs wrong, ate poisoned food. Choked on something. What if he was hit by a car, instead.

Oh how he wished.

And now, he could. He could stay still and surrender himself to his fate, and die easy knowing it would be ruled an accident and sure Nana might be sad but really–

But really there was a strong sense of vertigo, as Tsuna was yanked backwards. His shirt dug into his throat with the force of it, and Tsuna choked. The car rushed past, beeping wildly, and Tsuna could feel the displaced air slap him in the face. His heart thudded in his chest, and he felt oddly numb.

“ _Damn_ , you really _are_ no good. Did you _want_ to die? You were just standing there!”

Tsuna froze.

A sense of surrealism descended upon him. Whatever else the boy behind him way saying was lost to the drone in his ears. The world narrowed down to a point of nothing, and all Tsuna could hear were those dreaded words.

No good.

No good.

_No good._

He’d heard the words in his head many times, but somehow that didn’t prepare for actually hearing it being spoken. It was inexplicitly, infinitely worse.

So rather than actually processing any of it – the car, being saved, the painful _hope_ he’d allowed himself to feel for one, single moment – Tsuna didn’t. Instead he ripped himself from the other boy’s hold, ignored all and any protests and _ran_. By the time he got home he was sweaty, dirty and out of breath. His clothes were rumpled, his bag was missing – probably lying by the wayside. He had no clue what sort of expression he was making, and no other thoughts that to _get away_.

His mind stayed blank and his body numb all the while he entered his house, called out a greeting and climbed the stairs to his room. Tsuna was on autopilot, and it wasn’t until he was in bed, curled into a ball under the blanket that he let the tears fall.

He really was no good.

He couldn’t even die properly.


	2. Chapter 2

For years, Tsuna had lived in fear of the moment his shameful words would be exposed and their meaning come to life. He had hoped, deep inside, that he could cease-to-exist-die-leave-something before he got to the point where all anyone anywhere knew of him was that he was _no good_ and that the first words they’d ever say, ever think of him, was that he was _no damn good._

Now they had been said, now that his invisible deadline had passed, Tsuna didn’t know what to do with himself. He had, by the standards that he set himself, already hit rock bottom. He didn’t know how much lower he could go (but he did _he did he did he did–_ ) and he wasn’t sure if it was even possible to get better. It seemed unlikely, really.

But most importantly, he hadn’t even seen who had said his words (idiot-stupid- _no good_ ) so tWhere wasn’t actually much he _could_ do. Even then, what would he say to them? ‘Hello, you’ve tormented me for years, nice to meet you?’ Or maybe, ‘hello, sorry you have someone so bad for a soulmate, please don’t hate me I know you will but please don’t _please_ –’

Maybe not.

God, Tsuna hadn’t bothered to look at whoever was his _soulmate_.

What a mess.

Well, he’d been carrying on without hope for so long – felt like _years_ – anyway. (Now that the opportunity was gone–) now that the worst had passed, he may as well keep going.

It could hardly get any worse.

– x –

Mama was home when he got home late the next day. He had been waylaid on the way home. He had spent a while getting himself back to looking acceptable, if not very decent, and it was pushing sundown by the time he walked through the front door.

His mother was waiting for him in the living room, which was unexpected. Usually she went out to a group knitting club after she cooked dinner to leave for him, which could run on for hours and hours and its members caught up with each other and made things.

“Tsuna,” she said, sounding far too serious for her everyday demeanour. “You do know I care about you, right?”

Tsuna froze, a frown slowly creeping over his face as he wondered where this had even come from. “Of course,” he replied reflexively. This had to be leading somewhere.

She stared at him as looking for something specific within his expression, and Tsuna could feel his frown start to deepen.

“Did you want to talk about anything?” He eventually asked when the silence became too heavy.

“No,” she said, seemingly troubled. “Thank you for indulging me.”

Weird.

Tsuna turned to go, and Nana spoke up once more, softer this time.

“I love you, Tsuna.”

“Love you too,” he tossed over his shoulder, carelessly. He was already heading up the stairs to his room, and if Nana replied, he hadn’t heard it.

Whatever. That had been weirdly out of the norm, but Tsuna didn’t have the energy to deal with it. He barely had the energy to get through his everyday life as it was, and he could feel it steadily draining the closer he got to his safe haven.

Tsuna dumped his bag on the floor and flopped on his bed. He was so tired.

– x –

Yamamoto was staring at him. People had noticed, it was that obvious, and when people notice it becomes a Problem.

Specifically, a bullying problem.

Somehow, life had managed to get worse. Through some stroke of sheer bad luck, right after his encounter with his as-of-yet unknown soulmate, his school life managed to get even worse. People get jealousy over even the silliest of things and having the near-undivided attention of the school’s baseball star was no small thing.

Tsuna wished he could scream. Shout at everyone, ‘ _go away! He doesn’t even look happy to see me, there’s nothing to be jealous of!’_

And really, there wasn’t. Tsuna was aware of Yamamoto in the way everyone was at least peripherally aware of him, but they didn’t run in the same circles, they had never been assigned a seat near each other, nor a project together, or a task, or cleaning duty. They hadn’t, in fact, spared a single word to each other before, so there was absolutely no reason for Yamamoto to pay him even a lick of attention when he seemingly was unaware of his existence up until then.

Honestly, the attention was getting annoying. Tsuna rarely got truly annoyed anymore, he rarely even let himself out of the dissociative fugue that muted his emotions and saved him from complete and utter despair. But this was so close to the soulmate incident, and he had hit rock bottom and _failed_ and was on his way to being truly and utterly _irritated_ if Yamamoto didn’t stop staring _right that second_.

“Sir, can I go to the bathroom?”

Their English teacher looked blearily at Tsuna before nodding. It was the last period on a Friday and the old man was half-asleep on a good day. Tsuna immediately shot up and left, turning his back on that impenetrable stare and all but running away in his haste to get some peace and privacy.

It was not to be.

He’d barely had time to catch his breath, splash some water on his face and look into the mirror before he caught sight of him.

Goddamn Yamamoto, right behind him. Staring. Again.

The sudden surge of anger he experienced was both violent and unexpected in its ferocity. He felt trapped, hunted. Unable even to lick his wounds when life beats him down, unable to escape life when it came to be too much, unable to even look his soulmate in the eye because he _didn’t even bother to check who it was­_ –

Tsuna was almost rendered mute by this surge of emotion. It was unpalatable, too intense, and too much for him to deal with right then.

But only almost. Instead he managed to spit out two words from in between the clenching of his teeth, swirl around and harshly check Yamamoto and he left the bathroom.

He did not look back to see that devastated look upon Yamamoto’s face. It was a look of such shock that it would have, even in his anger, given Tsuna serious pause. As it was, there was nothing left but the near empty bathroom, the creaking of the pipes and the echo of Tsuna’s parting words.

“ _Go away_.”


End file.
